SOLVED. It's science fiction/ drama, and it's gotta be from around the late 80s early 90s maybe [s]

[Lee]

I read this book quite a while ago sorry for the hazy details....

There are five or six kids that wake up in either a huge building or, from how I remember it being described, a floating structure in the sky with a bunch of floating platforms connected by staircases.

The kids are all separated, but eventually come together at a platform where a girl is sticking her tongue out at a machine and it dispenses food for her.

Eventually the machine stops dispensing food for the one command and makes the kids trial and error steps in coordinating a dance, or routine, every time they need food.

I can't remember much else except it ends up being a government experiment on the kids and they didn't know it

[Andy]

This is House of Stairs by William Sleator House of Stairs

[Ann aka Iftcan]

I've moved this down to Unsolved for you Lee.

And I'm going to second Andy's suggestion.

[Lee]

Thank you so much!!! You guys are amazing

[Justanotherbiblophile]

You can mark this request as solved by clicking the 'edit' link next to the subject line / title, and then selecting one of the "Solved" folders. This will help save our moderators some time.

You should also change the subject line / title to start "SOLVED: [then your existing title]" which helps people still find your request later.

Solved requests are almost as important as unsolved requests (eg, so don't delete your info :D Otherwise it looks like this, which completely doesn't show how you generated *so* much interest for your book.)

[Andy]

Lee wrote: "Thank you so much!!! You guys are amazing"

Glad to help. "House of Stairs" turns out to be a popular one for people to ask about:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Pamela]

If only William Sleator had called it something like "The Book Where Kids Dance at the Traffic Light" !

[Kris]

Hmm...but perhaps Lee wouldn't have read the book in that case. :)

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I wouldn't have. (No offense.)

[Katie]

I joined this thread specifically to try to find this book and could only remember the distinctive traffic light scene at the end. Can't believe all I had to do was search "traffic light" in YA/SOLVED to find this! thanks everyone!!!! :)

[Kris]

Excellent! The system works. :)